Component tapes nowadays represent the most important form of packaging components. The tapes of the components are suitable both for fabrication in high numbers and also for small batch sizes, which make frequent changeover necessary. The component tapes are provided via feed modules to a fitting apparatus for fitting SMD components, for example. In this case, the feed modules have the task of ensuring trouble-free provision of the components from the tape. Here, the component tape runs from a roll into the feed module, the covering tape being pulled off the tape, so that the components can be removed by a fitting head, for example upward, at a collecting position.
The component tapes conventionally have fixed tape step widths. Thus, in each case, a component is fitted to the component tape at predetermined intervals of, for example, 1 mm, 2 mm, 4 mm, 8 mm and so on, for example inserted into a pocket in the component tape and secured by the covering tape against falling out.
In order to ensure rapid feeding, conventional feed modules have transported the component tapes onward successively at high speed by one of the fixed tape step widths in each case, pulling off the covering film, in order to provide the next component at the collecting position. For this purpose, for example, mechanical sequential drives have been used, which have transported the pin wheel onward in each case by one tape step width, as described in EP 967851, for example.
However, feed modules for fixed, mechanically predetermined tape step widths have the disadvantage that, firstly, only tapes with a single step width can be used and, secondly, correction of the collecting position is not possible, since the tape is always transported onward by a predetermined length. In particular in the case of very small components, however, there is the demand to be able to change the collecting position in order to be able to compensate for positional deviations of the component in the tape pocket. Furthermore, for a wider variety of possible uses of the feed modules, it is necessary to be able to process tapes with different tape step widths with a single tape feed module.